The pit lane is the special lane next to the track where race teams pull in to work on the car. It has rules—especially about how fast you can go—so it stays safe.
Average speed means how fast you went on average over a set stretch of track. Officials can check it by measuring the time it takes to go from one point to another, not just by watching your speed at one spot.
Radar guns are tools that measure how fast a car is going. Here, they’re being contrasted with a method that checks speed using time and distance instead.
“Cutting distance” means taking a shorter route than the officials are measuring. If you do that, the timing check can make it look like you were going too fast, even if your speed wasn’t higher at every moment.
A “dual stage limiter” is an electronic system that caps a car’s speed in a controlled way. “Dual stage” means it can behave differently depending on whether the car is coming into or leaving the zone where the limit applies.
Term
speed a little bit higher
They’re talking about how the shape of a turn affects how fast you can go. A wider path usually lets you carry more speed, while a tighter/shallow path means you have to slow down.
A chicane is a short section of the track with quick turns that forces cars to slow down. It’s used to make a straight area safer and harder to take at full speed.
They’re talking about getting punished for going too fast in the pit lane. Race officials enforce pit lane speed limits to keep cars from entering the track dangerously.
In racing, if you go off the track, you can’t just keep the benefit. Officials can penalize you if you leave the track and still end up with an advantage.
Monaco is a famous Formula 1 race run on city streets. Because the track is tight and slow with few passing spots, starting position and strategy can matter a lot.
Qualifying is when drivers try to set their best lap time before the race. Your qualifying result decides where you start the race, which matters a lot in Monaco because it’s hard to pass.
Ferrari is a top Formula 1 team. Here, they’re being discussed as the likely front-runner for Monaco because their car seemed well-suited to the track’s slow corners.
Mercedes is another major Formula 1 team. The hosts are saying their car didn’t look as strong at first for Monaco, but then they improved.
Term
long streets
“Long streets” here means longer straight sections of track. Monaco has fewer of those, so top speed matters less than on circuits with long straights.
Charles Leclerc is a Ferrari driver known for extracting strong performance from qualifying and circuit-specific setups. The hosts say he was “sublime” at Monaco, highlighting how driver skill and car balance matter on that track.
Lewis refers to Lewis Hamilton, one of the most successful F1 drivers. The hosts are saying he’s historically done well at Monaco and was coming in with strong recent results.
Free practice is when teams and drivers run laps before qualifying and the race to try out settings and learn how the tires feel. The hosts are saying Ferrari looked strong during those practice sessions.
Max Verstappen is a top Formula 1 driver. The hosts are basically saying that no matter what the predictions are, he’s always a threat to win or swing the race.
Pit stops are when the car pulls into the pit lane to change tires (and sometimes do quick adjustments). When you do it during the race can make or break your position.
In racing, a penalty is an official consequence for an infraction (like unsafe driving or rule violations). Penalties are often expressed as time additions or position drops, and they can drastically change the final order.
After a race moment ends, drivers sometimes do a slower lap to let the car “settle down.” It helps keep things like brakes and engine temps from getting too hot.
Here, “package” means the specific setup for that race—like how the cars are configured for the event. They’re saying the racing is still good even when that setup changes.
Term
Indy cars under the lights and at night
They’re talking about IndyCar races that happen at night under stadium-style lights. The point is that the cars still race well even when the event setup changes.
A “night race” is when the race is run mostly after dark. That can change how the track feels and how drivers see the racing line.
Term
twilight bull
They’re complaining about a race that only partially happens at night—starting in the evening but not fully after dark. They want it to be dark for the start so it feels like a real night race.
“Gateway pyro” refers to the pyrotechnics used at Gateway—an IndyCar street course event—typically triggered during the race start/ceremony. The hosts connect it to how dramatic the spectacle feels when it’s already dark, making the effects seem even more intense.
Topic
undercut vs caution timing
They’re talking about how a planned pit strategy didn’t work out because the race conditions changed with cautions. It shows why timing is everything in racing.
Term
Ray Hall yellow
A “yellow” is when the race slows down because of an incident, usually with cars needing to be more careful. If you were planning a pit move, a caution can ruin the timing and cost you positions.
“Lap back” means getting back the lap you lost earlier. If you’re stuck behind slower cars or pit timing goes wrong, it can be hard to catch up before the race ends.
“Rolling the dice” means the team is taking a gamble. They’re hoping the race situation (like cautions or weather) breaks their way, not just counting on being fastest.
A “fuel save” means the team tells the driver to use less fuel than normal. The goal is usually to go longer between pit stops so the car can stay on track and not lose time.
Concept
golden rule
The “golden rule” is basically: don’t plan your whole strategy around things you can’t control. In a race, you can’t control weather or when cautions happen, so you shouldn’t rely on them.
This means the team decided to pit one extra time instead of sticking to the usual plan. It can make the car faster later, but it costs time and needs careful fuel timing.
It means the car ran out of fuel and couldn’t keep going. That’s usually a strategy mistake or an unexpected change, and it can force an emergency stop.
Drag is the air “pushback” that makes the car slow down. The faster you go, the more the air fights you, so it changes how you drive and how much speed you can keep.
Throttle is how much you press the gas pedal. More throttle means more power to the wheels, and in racing it can help the car keep pulling through turns instead of slowing down too much.
Concept
counterintuitive
Sometimes the fastest-looking plan isn’t actually the quickest. Even if you’re not going as fast on the straights, you might be able to keep the gas down longer through the turns and end up faster overall.
Concept
passes for the lead
This just means cars keep overtaking each other for the first place spot. When the cars are close, small driving differences can lead to lots of exciting battles up front.
LIVE
This is off track.
How in the same age?
I mean, I'm saying it at a brand new hotel.
Can we not have internet that works?
It's just so frustrating.
Well, I understand.
You can't complain about it when you're in an airplane.
I think it's important to know that.
You're staying in a brand new hotel,
but it's in Sheboygan, Wisconsin,
which is not exactly known as like a.
A tech hub, I don't think.
I don't think Internet is high tech anymore, James.
I also, fair.
I also just want to be very clear.
I love Sheboygan.
This is not.
I'm not talking down on Sheboygan at all.
That's how I thought you were talking to that on Sheboygan.
That's how you heard about.
Yeah.
So are they called Sheboyganers?
Just like a Sheboygan.
Hills person.
Is it Beverly Hiller?
I'm looking it up.
I was you a Beverly.
I was Beverly Hiller.
Hiller.
Anyways, I don't have that.
I don't have that much time.
It's a Sheboygander.
That's stupid.
Let's not waste that much time, guys.
It's tough.
Monaco is this weekend.
Oh, we're going straight into Monaco.
All right.
Let's Monaco it up.
Guys, for the first time in, I don't know, 28 years,
Monaco was exciting.
Well, Monaco is only exciting because the truck is failing.
Monaco is entertaining.
Maybe that's the difference.
I guess you could be entertained without being excited.
Maybe not.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I guess the two go hand in hand.
But yes, the track was breaking up in there.
Done that.
The pit lane is very shorter than people thought it was.
Apparently.
Well, was pillage shorter than people thought it was?
Or were people not abiding by the rule?
I guess is my question.
Well, they weren't abiding by the rule in the sense that
they were going faster than the speed limit and thus broke
the rule and thus got penalties.
Well, they weren't.
So here, let's go.
We need to clarify that.
They were not going faster than the speed limit.
They're average.
They do it as a distance from point A to point B because
they don't have radar guns all the way down pit lane.
So the way they measure speed is by time because they know
it x miles an hour to go this distance.
It should take this amount of time.
And if you're under that amount of time, then you must be
speeding or you are somehow cutting distance, which is
what it ended up being.
So let's let's not say people were speeding.
They weren't.
They were going too fast from one point to the other, but
not via speed.
They were getting to point B too quickly from point A, but
not via speed.
The time will be a time.
Well, we're but not speed.
Okay.
Yes, I'm feeling the same thing.
That is that is a it is speeding.
Their average speed was too high.
Their time was too low.
Which mathematically speaking means that their speed was too
high.
We're saying the same thing, but but for and I don't want to
insult our audience, but for the layman mind, these they
weren't setting.
They weren't going too fast into pit lane.
They weren't turning off pit lane speed limit too soon.
The teams weren't making stupid software programming errors
by setting it too high.
Like this was not a mistake from it, but Alex asked me this
because you've been there.
How do you do it all through practice and qualifying one
way and then just decide to do it a different way during
the race that cheats the system and ends up giving everybody
penalties like normally you try to cheat the whole weekend
so that way you can tune everything perfectly.
There's a very real example in Indy car of that not being
the case, but I'm not going to talk about that.
Well, yeah, fair.
Do you really think people were intentionally cheating or they
were unintentionally cutting distance that only appeared
during the race with all the pit equipment and everything
out that it became an issue for some cars.
Do you think it was an actual plan of like, oh, we're going
to shave one tenth of a second off of our pit lane time.
So start doing this.
No, I do not.
Okay.
I do think it was accidental and unintentional because
again, they know how this works.
And even though they're not adjusting the speed of their
cars, if there's if the speed of their car is set to the
absolute limit, then by cutting distance, you will in fact
be speeding and pit lane from a time standpoint.
So they're not doing intentionally, but I just find
out we're like, why are they driving differently in the
race than they are in practice?
I mean, like I don't know.
It's weird.
So we have this issue in Indy car with the dual
stage limiter, whether it's on entry or exit, because
it's quite a long distance, the access road and depending on
the line that you take is again, it's time over distance.
If you take a super wide arc, then you can theoretically
have your speed a little bit higher.
You take a super shallow arc, your speed needs to be a
little bit lower than the prescribed 80 miles an hour.
But the instance that was happening in Monaco from my
understanding was there's a little sort of chicane that
they have to navigate through at the end of pit lane before
it narrows down and they're on the inside of turn one.
And I think they were just cutting that chicane a little
bit why that didn't appear in practice.
I really don't know, but like I find it really hard to
believe that there was any sort of conscious intent from
a driver to try and game a system.
For sure.
I agree.
I agree with the intent side.
Okay.
But the end result was what like six different drivers got
penalties for speeding a pillain just ridiculous.
There was penalties for start infractions.
There were penalties for leaving the track and maintaining
an advantage.
There were more penalties issued in that race.
I feel like then like all of the first five races, whatever
they're at, it was nuts.
That was crazy.
Yeah.
Very, very interesting.
Okay.
The race.
Which one?
Monaco.
Well, you're just starting qualifying because that's
normally the race at Monaco.
And in a weekend that was sort of predicted to be a Ferrari
kind of weekend based on their strength in low speed corners
and lack of long streets where they have a deficit Mercedes.
It kind of seemed like it could be theirs.
Leclerc, we know was just sublime around that place.
He's he's pretty special there.
Lewis has a very good track record there and coming off
his best results since joining Ferrari.
A lot of things pointing the Ferrari direction, including
both free practices on Friday.
Okay.
And then Saturday, two things happen.
One, Mercedes got their act together and two, Max Verstappen
exists.
Yeah, I don't know that you need to add any more than that.
So were you surprised more by, I don't think anyone's
surprised that Mercedes kind of figured it out, right?
Just they've had that kind of advantage and given his current
form, nobody's surprised that Antonelli is on pole, I think
to a certain extent.
So what's a bigger surprise?
Is it Verstappen getting up into P2 and nearly having like
41 hundredths was a difference, like nearly being
on pole or the fact that George was so far off Kimmy that
I think he was like six or something.
Like what's what is actually more shocking?
Well, I don't know that anything the Max, I don't think
anything that he does anymore is shocking to anyone, right?
If he had put it on pole, it would have been like unbelievable,
but it would be like that's Max doing Max things.
So I think unbelievable how he does it.
It's just so cool.
It's so cool.
I think I think the surprise expands way beyond qualifying.
I think the surprise is what has occurred over the past five
Grand Prix of the rising of Kimmy Antonelli.
I mean, I remember in the offseason when we were doing
one of these and you and I both picked George is the easy is
our easy choice to win the championship.
And I I am really surprised.
The upper hand that Kimmy seems to have on in like all phases.
It's not like, oh, Kimmy's super fast over a lap.
It's struggles with tired egg, you know, a pioster yes
situation in the first year and a half of his career.
He, you know, I will get into it in the race, but like he's
really struggled getting off the line.
So at the end of the race, when it was a red flag and a standing
start and it was a 10 lap shoot out and the Ferrari being as
good off the line as it is with Lewis as hungry as he was.
It's like as an 18 year old around Monica, are you going to
come to that pressure having dominated the entire weekend and
potentially getting taken away from you like every phase of
everything he's delivering on and executing.
I think that is the surprise.
As much as it is the distance that he is creating between
himself and George like that's that's why up because as we
all know, George is great.
He's very good.
Right.
Yes.
And so do we think that this is more of an
indictment of George's capacity to maintain his best level of
performance while being rattled by a teammate or is it more
just like pure awe of the unrivaled and quite literally never seen
before talent of Antonelli in the sense that no drivers ever
won their first five Grand Prix back to
back.
Like can George on his day still do it or or or is is is Kimmy
just more talented or is Kimmy coming in with almost not no
expectations, but significantly lower expectations than George
did coming into this year as he is driving free and George is
driving with the weight of those expectations and he's not
handling it as well as he would have hoped.
No, because I think I think at this point in George's career
having to prove himself at Williams and then going up
against Lewis who, you know, still to this day from a records
perspective is is the best of the best ever right and and dealing
with that pressure of coming into Mercedes and being Lewis
Hamilton's teammate.
He could handle that.
I don't I don't think that the pressure of being the championship
favorite after everything that he's proven through his career
and knowing that Mercedes had the development edge.
I don't think that's it.
That's the biggest pressure he's experienced in his career.
So I don't think it's something to do with that.
I think it's it's more the first option.
Okay, so let's unpack that a bit because his time at Williams.
He never had a real teammate right like no disrespect to the
guys he drove against, but he came in with a different record,
right, and was of a different caliber than the guys that he
was teamed with at Williams.
Then you get to Mercedes and it's there's a there's two things
that play into this one Mercedes did not nail it with the new
generation of car.
And two, he came in without that expectation because his
teammate was Lewis Frey and Hamilton, you know, fresh off
that crushing defeat in 21, nearly taking home as a title,
expecting and expected to come back strong in 22 and try to
right the wrong of 21.
If that's, you know, how you see it.
And so he didn't have that pressure and he came in and performed
very well and he adapted better to that rule set.
Lewis never seemed comfortable in that generation of car.
So there were a few things that could be seen as kind of playing
into the hand in that sense.
And last year he had a car that wasn't up to the McLaren or the
Red Bull and he got the absolute most out of it because the main
attention was kind of off him the whole time.
Now all the attention from like six months ago from a year ago,
it's about a year ago when everybody started saying, oh,
Mercedes has nailed it.
They're going to be the best.
You've got a kid as your teammate who he, you know, trounced
last year.
Does that expectation finally just like all see all off season,
all preseason build up and it came out swinging in Australia had
a mechanical issue that kind of derailed his weekend in China.
And then from there is just kind of been outclassed.
I mean, obviously terrible luck in Montreal while leading.
But I mean, Kimmy looked quicker in the race.
Let's be honest, Georgia's leading at the time, but Kimmy had
all the pace of George and maybe a little more spunk in his race
craft.
So I wonder, I wonder how much of it is, is that classic thing
you see it in sports all the time you see in motor sports all
the time where expectation really just weighs a driver down
and coming in sort of free and clear, mentally, emotionally
can really just leave you in a tremendous spot.
I don't know that we'll ever know, but I don't think that
I changed my opinion.
I don't think George and we all know I'm not going to give
George compliments for free.
I don't think that he is to come into pressure.
I think we are witnessing something pretty spectacular.
And I think we can back that up with just the think of his
career progression.
Total Wolf is not an intelligent guy.
Mercedes Benz and the board that exists that make these
decisions of ultimately replacing Lewis Hamilton with a
child.
They're not doing that on a whim.
They have metrics and they have logic reasoning
to do that.
And so I think we're seeing that play out.
I have a question.
So I said, Trayman, as somebody who doesn't follow F1,
all I know about it is what when you guys talked about it
or catch it every now and then.
Why do you not like George?
Oh, we're not going to get into that because it's not just
I don't know.
I don't know.
Like because we've had you just just watch.
We had to do it on.
Oh, and sufferable.
Is we were we had boxed it on.
He said, who do you think is going to win?
He said George.
He goes, he hopes he doesn't like it just seems like anybody
who's spent any time with his guy can't stand him.
Is he really just that bad?
Or that annoying?
He's pretty frustrating to be around.
Okay.
Okay, I was just curious.
I'm sorry to comment because he's he's in the world still.
Boxing's not in the world anymore.
So I certainly think that he he's rubbed some people the wrong
way.
Um, but I mean, you know, last year.
A lot of people put him, you know, in the top three of the
best, you know, best drivers of the season.
So he's he's everybody seems to agree.
They're like, hey, he's a really good driver.
Hate him, but that just seems to be everybody.
I love how uncomfortable we've been 17 minutes talking about
F1.
So the race, uh, let's let's rip through it fast because we
have a much more important race to talk about.
So start Timmy nailed it.
Max's car blew up.
Max did not feed into the race out of the race.
Yeah.
Super did not make it.
Uh, so basically you end up with the typical Monaco train.
Uh, except Antonelli was just so far ahead of everybody else.
Lewis did an incredible job all weekend long out qualifying.
Charles was massive.
Was running in P two.
Um, and then yeah, and then everything just started going off
the rails.
There was multiple penalties that started coming in during the
pit stops.
There, uh, was a couple accidents, stroll, then Leclerc and a
restart, and there was a red flag for the track breaking up on
the restart, Antonelli kept his stuff together.
And yeah, long story short, Jimmy just absolutely dominated
and had his first grand slam, which is pretty impressive.
Um, fifth win in his career, fifth win in a row, Monaco Monaco.
He won Monaco at 19 years old.
Like that's a, that's a triple crown race.
Right.
He now has like another 25 years to try to win 500 in Le Mans.
And, and he could be the second guy to do it ever.
So it's, it's pretty, pretty impressive, pretty spectacular.
Um, the heartbreak, couple heartbreaks, uh, of the day, the
ghastly situation man is like, I'm at a, I'm at, I'm at a complete
loss.
So ghastly driving for Alpine who I like when I forget what show
I was on, I think it was maybe the red flags podcast and they're
like, give me some bold prediction for the years.
Like what you're, what you're out of left field prediction for
the year.
And I said appear ghastly podium and dammit, he crossed the line third
and he has some stupid penalty that knocked him back.
But here's what's so brutal about it is the team didn't tell him
he had it.
So this guy drive lives in Monaco driving for a French team.
No, he doesn't live in Monaco.
Sorry.
He lives in Italy, but French guy, almost French race, basically
French race, what biggest race of the calendar, most important
one, smaller team on the podium crosses the line and third.
He is fist pumping the air.
He's on the radio screaming and it's like three quarters of the
way around the cooldown lap, not even like across the line.
They've let him rant and fist pump and waved to the fans.
They finally tell him that he's got a penalty and he ended up
like eight or something unfathomable, unforgivable from
that program.
So I don't know if that's entirely true because during the red
during the red flag, there was a conversation that the cameras
picked up that the commentators were commenting on.
You couldn't really hear everything, but then Pierre goes and
throws a towel and kicks a wall.
So everyone in the commentary booth assumed potentially
wrongly that that was him being informed that when it goes green,
he has a 10 second penalty.
So I'm wondering if he thought that he had built a big enough
gap or there was some wrong display on his dash with the car
behind or something like that because he was pretty angry
getting back on the car after the red flag and you could only
presume interesting based on the day he was having so far that
it would have been that news.
So I don't want to light up the team quite yet, but yeah, that
seems weird that he wouldn't know that because they would have
wanted him to push as hard as he could to build the gap.
Right.
So they would have given him that information, but it was it
was a restart with only like 12 laps to go to think that you
pulled out 10 seconds on fourth place seems unlikely.
I don't know.
I love how Jerry got his first podium for Red Bull.
That was cool.
Good for him after stovin in the wall and practice.
And then the other kind of heartbreak was Cadillac came oh
so close to their first point because of some of those penalties.
They were briefly elevated to 10th after crossing the line in
11th with Checo and then Checo ended up also getting a penalty
not a speeding 11 to do with with pit box and in the
restart and whatever.
So an emotional up down for that group.
But yeah, man, just a weird a weird, weird deal weird day in
Monaco seeing Charles crash out of the home race always sucks
with a hometown guy if the date doesn't go well, but great
for a great, great weekend for Hamilton.
Amazing weekend for Kimmy.
George was getting hosed by guys all day long, which sucked.
The racing bulls almost didn't build enough turning radius
into their cars to get around the hairpin, which was kind of
funny in first practice.
Well, I'm missing.
You should stop talking about it.
It's not our job.
Well, it's kind of your job.
It's not Tim's job.
So then the Monaco of the Midwest.
Why technology raceway using that talk about it.
So before also how do we talk about it?
I want to issue a correction, which obviously people probably
already know by this point, but I was I was slightly misinformed.
So on last week's podcast, we talked about the package change.
And I said that it was less power and more downforce.
It was in fact less power and less downforce.
The reason for all of that was to protect against tire failures
in the right front, which is a very good reason to make a change.
So I just want to get that out there.
I'm sure everyone has figured that out by now.
But anyways, let's talk about it.
I thought that it was still a fantastic race.
Was it quite as amazing as last year?
No, I do think the package was worse from that standpoint.
However, as we have said time and time again, Indy cars under the
lights and at night doesn't really matter what package it is.
The racing is good.
We had that even in the olden days.
So huge shout out to everyone for finally giving us what we've
all been asking for, like a real night race, not this twilight
bull, it starts at five o'clock and ends at 730
when the sun set in like it was dark when we went green.
And that's pretty cool.
Yeah, I don't I don't like anybody's mad at a full night
race makes the effects of the now trademark gateway pyro even
that much more ridiculous.
Can you can you feel the heat from inside the car when those
things go off?
Yeah, I have to admit that even though they spent more money
this year, it was less impressive because you knew what to expect.
Yeah.
Would you hate that?
I feel bad for them because they did just outdo themselves
so much last year.
And we played this funny clip, which was like a mashup of all
the radio transmissions between like drivers, teams, spotters.
Last year when it happened when nobody was expecting it and some
of the reactions were pretty funny, much, much fewer, many fewer
this year's because everybody, like you said, was expecting it.
But yes, I think I think that sort of was the consensus with
the with the garage was the package was OK, not quite as
racy as last year, but still still raceable and and the event
the race proved that to be true in qualifying.
We want to talk about streaks as we did with Antonelli Palos fourth
pole in a row that have come at a road course, a super speedway,
a street circuit and now a short oval, the four different types
of tracks that we run on.
He has had a pole in each in consecutive weekends.
Pretty astonishing race started a little bit early.
Thread of rain all day long, which I mean, I kind of want to talk
about this at some point, Alex.
So I mean, why don't we kind of just we'll do the normal thing?
Let's let's go through your weekend.
Let's go through your race on the on the 20 car and then we can kind
of hit a few of the bigger points of the of the event and of the race.
Pretty decent qualifying, qualified 10th, struggled in the night
practice with getting the balance right.
Didn't really get it super right for the race either.
First stint.
We were pretty good.
We were running around the 11th second stint.
We were okay running around a ninth and we went for the undercut
and got burned by the Ray Hall yellow.
So when I lap down and through subsequent yellows and red flags
and everything, we didn't ever quite get that lap back until we
were going to and.
And it went yellow for rain and I came into a pit lane that I
was in this time on like Detroit, however, there's some things
I'm not going to talk about because it's just not worth it.
We didn't get our lap back and we ended up losing another one.
So then I was trapped two laps down and that was my night.
So I don't think we were great, but you know, we were racing
Renus and Lungard and Armstrong for the first half of the race
who were and David who were top 10 cars.
So I think we could have, you know, finished in the ninth to
11th, 12th range and we finished 18th instead.
But as we've come to expect Christian does his thing on short
ovals, which is just incredible time and time again and ended
up having a great night for the team.
So that was the one positive to take away from it.
I can't help but be in complete awe when watching some of his
on boards.
I mean, this this race was certainly not as spectacular as
what we saw like in I was just going to say the average lap
on his onboard was not what we were, you know, holding our
breaths for 40 laps in Milwaukee watching, but that one save
into three was it was ridiculous man.
Like you don't save that.
How is this?
How is he doing that stuff?
Well, what I think we need to move on from or at
least put them on the same level.
There's been so much hype around Pado and his fast hands and
you know, Townsend calling him the ninja at this point.
I think Christians on the same level.
If not Eclipston like it's it's unbelievable.
Like he had to save in Indy in turn one where both hands are
off the wheel and brought it back.
So I mean, he does it.
It's not just short ovals at 160 miles an hour.
He did it in India turn one at 215.
So completely agree, completely agree.
And again, we've talked about how he sort of set the new
standard for how you have to drive on on these short ovals
and how you have to set the car up and things like that.
That said, the old standard apparently still works pretty
well because old Jojo new garden just just did a thing man.
Like it's six.
He's won six a gateway six and and he was leading last year
when he got crashed out.
Right.
And he hit the wall by himself.
I think was it two years ago or maybe three years ago?
Just random wreck out of two all on his own.
And I think he was running at the if he was leading, but he
was right at the front.
Anyway, I think he's been eight at this point.
Okay.
Was that Texas?
Anyways, doesn't matter.
Yeah, doesn't matter.
He's so good there.
It's it's ridiculous.
It's stupid how fast he is all the circle stuff.
He's amazing, but credit credit.
Stu Man.
Erickson had I think his best non Indianapolis oval race of
his career started.
I want to say 11th or 12th and even better started 13th and
just in that first stint basically drove all the way to the
lead, like just was was on fire.
Very good late in the stand.
Very good in traffic.
May the second lane work.
None of it looked panicked.
None of it looked like a raspy sit on board to get there.
He just sort of had the car beneath him.
And what was really impressive was he he stayed ahead of it.
Right.
He stayed competitive.
Sometimes you see that ebb and flow in these in these races,
especially I find night races because the track does tend
to change quite a bit.
It changed a bit less this time because to your point, Alex,
it started actually when it was dark and not at dusk.
So we didn't have quite as dramatic a temperature drop.
Quite as dramatic a track temperature drop.
But either way stayed on top of the car, stayed ahead of the
balance and it was kind of him and Joseph all night long.
Raz got in there in that in that final kind of stint and a
half, but it was really the 12 versus the 12
cars, sorry, the two versus the 28 other cars were in the mix
at times, but those two were just kind of consistently the
class of the field and it came down to a good old fashioned
shootout, no lap cars because of red flags and restarts.
And yeah, really, really good.
So congrats to Joseph second win on the season.
Great effort from Marcus P2 awesome from Rasmussen to get
another podium year on from his first at Gateway last year.
Hello, and Dixon, CGR, I think for the first time in, I don't
know, 10, 12 years made the wrong strategy call, which was
interesting relating to fuel, relating to fuel and weather and
rolling the dice and all that.
So I mean, man, there's so much to unpack about it because
part of me kind of gets why they took that opportunity to
pit to kind of put themselves on this fuel save one more stop
kind of strategy because I don't think they were quick enough
to race for the win on pure pace.
And so you're running, you know, back, you know, you're running
in the bottom half of the top 10 or whatever.
Do you want to go for a win?
Do you want to just bring home some points?
If you're Alex Polo with the lead that he's got in the
championship, you probably just come home mates and bring home
some points, but the racers chip likes winners.
So they both rolled the dice very Dixon move, maybe a little
bit less of a 10 car move because what it required to work
was either just being able to achieve a crazy fuel number,
a red flag and race ending rainstorm at the right time or
like a pretty significant amount of yellow.
And there's kind of a golden rule, right?
Where you're when you're building a strategy, you can't you
shouldn't build it around things.
You can't control at all like the weather and yellow flags,
right?
So they went this the route where most of the cars had two stops
left and were pushing flat out.
They kind of went for one more stop with a fuel save number
and it almost looked like they had abandoned it at some point
and then they were both running up front when a red flag or
yellow first came out for moisture and then ran around
under caution for quite a while before a red flag was finally
called when they fired back up and had already been established.
Dixon was the leader.
It was already been established.
She was going to have to pit under a closed pit that first
lap to get emergency service.
Hello stayed out to try to come into the pits when they were
open and not have to do the emergency service and subsequent
penalty and a bonem because he ran out of gas coming to pit lane.
How did you see the pitting when they did to kind of go on to
that one more stop with a big number strategy?
Something easy with hindsight.
But like when you guys were thinking about it something something
that we would even we wouldn't even consider.
But when Gnasi goes for it, you're like, oh, well, they'll
probably pull it off.
Oh, so that's how Dixon wins this time.
Right.
No, that was a hundred percent.
It was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Like we can never do that, but give them the trophy now.
I wonder if that's almost what the 10 stand was thinking.
They were like, well, man, like Dixon wins so many races like
this.
Why don't we just why try to do the same thing
because he makes it work.
And yeah, I mean, they thought Alex had saved enough fuel to
do that one extra lap under caution and and he didn't even
have that.
So yeah, just it was it was lucky that here's the thing,
man, if that yellow doesn't come out and that red doesn't
happen and all that stuff, I think they actually were going
to be in good shape.
Like I think they were hitting the number and the the pace
difference wasn't terrible.
I think it would have been probably doable, which is
astonishing because with the less power, you know, you're
you're getting fuel back because you have less horsepower,
but you're also carrying a lot of throttle because the
straights are now longer because you're not going as fast
and that sort of thing.
So in a lot of ways, it was harder to hit a number just
because your time where you can't lift was longer.
If that makes sense.
So yeah, I mean, in fact, the way they were able to do it
was crazy.
Yeah, the way it was kind of explained, right?
Is you've got you're going slower.
So longer straights, they move down for us off the floor,
which is efficient to the top of the car, which is inefficient.
So more drag and because you you're going slower, you could
hold more throttle through three and four.
So you're just carrying more throttle throughout the lap
and you're actually burning a longer period of time.
Right.
So so yeah, interesting sort of conundrum there.
It seems kind of counterintuitive, but at the end of
the day, man, banger race, we saw passes for the lead
repasses for the lead, like a nice battle between between
Joseph, Marcus, Christian was really, you know, just a solid
day.
It's it's tough though, man.
Like that was a long day in a race car with three red flags
323 I don't know two or 32 or three
couple stoppages.
We went longer way longer than we should have.
Yeah.
Was it hard?
Like was it hard kind of we've had races where the start was
delayed until 11 o'clock and that's kind of tough.
We've had races and maybe like, let me tell you, it would
have been hard if, you know, I was racing for anything, but
yeah, I was just on my own lap hounding rock.
So no, it wasn't hard at all.
The worst my average was 103.
No, that's me with a good hangover.
That takes into account the stoppages, right?
So it would have come down to like 60.
Yeah, true red flags, right?
West probably just sit there for 40 minutes in the car.
And then I let you guys get out for like eight minutes, like
get back in the car, get back in the car.
And I'm like, I'm like, I don't move that fast.
I don't want.
They had to build it an extra two minutes to allow Rossy to
crutch back to the car.
Anyways, an update on that guy.
So yeah, the latest stitches come out on Wednesday.
Well, let me just give you a preview of my week.
So we're up here in Sheboygan.
So I don't know when this is coming out, whatever.
We're testing it on America Tuesday.
Stitches come out Wednesday.
And with all of that, I plan on not being on crutches in
North America.
So that's nice.
Nice.
That'll be nice for me.
Have you ever had stitches before?
Not non-dissolvable ones.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I was.
Yeah.
That's what I was getting at.
Okay.
Is it as bad as I imagine it's going to be?
It's not that bad.
It's just, it's just a really weird feeling.
Like it's mildly painful, but it just, it's just frigging
weird, like watching and seeing.
Yeah.
Like, yes, it's a very uncomfortable feeling.
Yay.
Yay.
So you got that to look forward to.
I'm going in.
No, like I assume that was the case.
Yeah.
So I'm not surprised to hear that, but I'm disappointed to
hear it.
I really wanted it to go the other way.
Yeah.
That's fair enough.
No, it'll be good.
So all right.
So you can, you can ditch the crutches and you can walk.
So when are we, when are we getting to play racquetball
again?
It's, I miss my racquetball buddy.
By me being able to not be on crutches, that doesn't mean
I like can walk like I will have a pretty big limb for a
minute.
Sounds like you can play racquetball.
Sounds like you just rehab really strengthen up the,
the bits and pieces.
Here's what I'm hearing is you don't think you can beat James.
The part that's broken is the part that protects your like
foot from going left and right too much, but you, you kind
of need that in racquetball.
You do challenge that a little bit.
Yes.
In racquetball.
That's, that's true.
Okay.
We'll put that on hold for a little while.
I mean, we can become like playing pickle because you can
stand still and play pickle mid July.
Okay.
I'll hold you to that.
It's a day.
I don't want to, to be a dick about it, but James,
I think you got to call in his, his bet with you that he
would do a half marathon if you bike.
So I think, I think now is the time to call that in.
No, because he's so stubborn.
He would do it on crutches just out of spite.
Do it on one of those little, little one-legged scooter
things and just, you know, okay.
So we are officially halfway through the season.
I guess Alex give you, you give the 20 team a, uh, report
current grading at least we finished the race, you know,
and we didn't catch on fire.
So no, we're, we're, we're, we're good.
We're, we're actually pretty good.
Um, we just have, we can't seem to score points.
Um, for one reason or another, you empower kind of on that same
sort of trajectory where it's like there's decent pace week
in and week out and it's constantly seems to be something
that's hurting it less.
I mean, less fighting for wins than will has been, but like we
should have, we should, there's no reason why every event this
year we shouldn't have been in the top 10 fairly easily.
And for one reason or another, which there always seems to be
something, um, it's not happening.
But like I've said, since the beginning of the year, like the
team is, is really progressed and the cars are actually quite
good in a lot of different ways and a lot of different phases.
Um, as you saw in qualifying, like we were, me and Pato were
kind of the best of the rest.
If you take out and skiing and assing, including the shank cars.
Um, you know, I think Kirkwood did an amazing job in qualifying,
but like, you know, we're right there with the five car in
terms of like not being quite at that elite level, but being
better than kind of everyone else.
Um, you know, we didn't, the balance changed a lot overnight.
So we didn't quite get that right.
And we had some things not go our way, but then you look at
Detroit and all of the struggles we were dealing with, if we
were running eighth kind of minding our business there, forget
the close pit thing, like I don't even need to be on the podium.
Like that was another day we were, we would have just finished
eighth, um, and it just, Indy, we all know what happened.
Indy GP, like these are just things that continue to happen,
but we're in a much better place than last year.
It's just frustrating.
Um, but the cool thing about racing is especially Indy car,
we always keep going next weekend.
So see you soon.
We get to do it again in a minute.
Um, okay.
Last, last thing then, because I know you got to go.
What's, what's one, give me one car number, one team, uh, that
has surprised you either in a good way or a bad way so far in
the first half of 26.
I don't think that there's anything that isn't obvious surprise.
The 60 car or Felix won the 500 surprise, but not really that
the 10 and nine gap is what it is.
I guess my biggest surprise is the lack of overall my surprise
is the five car hasn't done podium this year.
That's a good one.
That is a good one.
You know, we talked about this weekend.
He's had 67 or eight podiums a year for the last three,
four years, whatever it is.
And to be nine races in without a podium, that is a, that is a
shock.
The one, the one that I'll add and, and maybe it's, you know,
uh, fine.
It's on me, I guess a bit, but I don't know if I was expecting
not that I was expecting it to not go well, but I don't know
how I was expecting the maluchus in the 12 to do as well as
he's doing to be the top Penske guy in points.
Um, at the halfway mark, you know, despite
not having won a race yet.
Um, yeah, Joseph with two wins.
You got Scott who came in super confident this year.
Um, little Dave is, I think out kicking his coverage a little
bit and, uh, it's fun to watch.
It's good to see, but yeah, the rest of it is, uh, is almost on
script a little bit.
Maybe Kirk, what I think is, is stepped it up and has been a
bit stronger.
I mean, again, not unexpected, but good to see that him and
that team have kind of stepped up that program.
I think another surprise is power having not had maybe a little
more success, but the pace has been there.
They have been on the podium.
So I guess he's, you know, getting used to a new program.
So that's.
Yeah.
Kind of on script, but the other one is how, how good, how
good Graham has been.
I think that's a surprise.
Graham and you know what, actually just for the weekend, uh,
I mean, if we're saying honorable mentions, I'm going to,
I'm going to disagree with that one.
Not because I don't think he did a good job, but I think our
good buddy Connor showed that, that that program is pretty
sorted around ours.
Got pace.
Yeah.
Kyle Collette.
Two O's in a row.
If you include Indy, like he has been very impressive.
A hundred percent.
We talked about him a bunch on the broadcast because heartbreak
forum with the failure that he had, but he's doing, and he's
doing a really good job.
Amen to that.
All right.
Well, have fun in Sheboygan, my favorite little northern
Wisconsin town and driving on my favorite road course in the
country, uh, insanely jealous, but enjoy happy stitching
removing.
I can't wait to hear all about it and, uh, we'll talk to you
in a few days next week.
Sounds good guys.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi off track is
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About this episode
Monaco and St. Louis recaps kick off with travel gripes, including “Can we not have internet that works?” before the conversation turns to Monaco’s chaos—“the track was breaking up in there,” multiple pit-lane and track-limit penalties, and a weekend where “Monaco is only exciting because the truck is failing.” The hosts then unpack pit-lane speed enforcement, explaining how time/distance and cutting distance can trigger penalties, and debate whether it was accidental. The show also touches on night racing, fuel-save strategy, and a few season/driver storylines.
Hinch and Rossi break down everything that happened with F1 in Monaco last weekend, before breaking down IndyCar's weekend in St. Louis.
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Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast Network. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a 5-star rating and leave a review. Subscribe today wherever you stream your podcasts.
